The other day, reading through the always entertaining British rag called The Sun, I came upon a description of a new pizza just introduced at a London pizza chain called Eco. It’s called “The Hopper.”

For about $35, you get a pie topped with eight frogs’ legs, capers and an anchovy sorbet. The inventor, Chef Sami Wasif, came up with the idea while on a trip to Paris. He calls it “refined,” adding that, “I’ve been making pizza for more than 20 years, and I know that London is a city always looking for something new. Pizza is something you can experiment with. I might try one with snails on it next.”

Now, frogs’ leg pizza may be a bit outré. But in the world of strange pizza toppings, it barely registers.

In Japan, epicenter of odd pizzas, the list of curious ingredients is extensive — a quick web search revealed pizzas topped with cabbage curry, camembert, cod roe, fish flakes, egg yolk, mayonnaise, raisins, spaghetti and Tater Tots. (Actually, there used to be a pizza place in Los Angeles that offered a pie topped with french fries. They were always soggy. It was a horrible notion.)

Pizza possibilities are endless, and include this Prosciutto and Burrata pie with Japanese-styled dough, smoked mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes and arugula. (File photo by Cindy Yamanaka)

And then, there’s the Mega Pizza available at the Pizza Hut chain in Japan — a pie topped with pretty much everything. No, really, the crust is made of hot dogs and bacon wrapped in what’s called a “double roll,” which supports a topping of cheese rolls, Italian sausage, ham, bacon slices, bacon bits, tomato slices, mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, garlic chips, basil, black pepper and tomato sauce, with an option for adding maple syrup and ketchup. It goes for an almost reasonable-sounding $30.

But then, when it comes to eccentric pizza, there may be nothing to compare with Tom Seefurth’s Mamma Mia Pizza Beer — beer-flavored with oregano, basil, tomato sauce and garlic. Interestingly, it’s a low alcohol beer. And there’s no getting around its sheer…efficiency. Pizza and beer, all in one handy vessel. If there was a pepperoni option, it would be perfect.

And even when imperfect, we definitely love our pizza here in America.

The pun about it being a lot of dough is an obvious one. But there’s no denying that $25 billion worth of pizza a year makes pizza the Big Cheese among American fast foods. The amount of pizza we consume every year is the equivalent of 90 acres of pizza every day, which is a lot of crust no matter how you slice it.

And it is, by far, our favorite fast-food; a recent Gallup Poll revealed that kids would rather eat pizza for lunch and dinner than any other food. And that includes such American classics as hamburgers and hot dogs.

This is especially impressive when you consider that pizza is a relatively new dish on the American menu. The first pizza parlor in America — Lombardi’s in New York’s Little Italy — didn’t open its doors until 1905. And pizza didn’t really take off as an American phenomenon until after World War II, when GIs returning from the south of Italy came home craving dough with spicy tomato sauce and cheese slathered all over it.

Even then, it took quite a while for pizza to catch on, with the first Golden Age of Pizza beginning in the mid-1950s, just in time to coincide with Elvis, Davy Crockett and the hula hoop.

These days, the average American eats pizza 30 times a year, which adds up to 8.6 pizzas per American per year.

Not surprisingly, pepperoni is the topping of choice. Somewhat surprisingly is the abundance of regional toppings that travel little at all beyond their home base — goat cheese and sundried tomato pizzas in Southern California, taco pizzas in the Southwest, sauerkraut and sausage pizzas in the Midwest.

And then, there’s the pizza of legend, the pie that most speak of as the sine qua non of the breed. It’s called the New York-style pizza, and no one is very good at defining it, including those who live in New York. As a rule, it’s got a thin crisp crust, topped with lots of sauce and lots of cheese, with a distinctly burnt bottom.

Definitive New York pizzas are to be found in the Big Apple at John’s and Original Ray’s in Greenwich Village, and Vinnie’s on the Upper West Side.

We definitely love our pizza here in America — and there are several pizzerias nearby serving winning pies. (Shutterstock)

And where do you find pizzas of legend here in the San Gabriel Valley? The choices are many, and in this case, highly subjective. But when the need is upon me, this is where I go. And the need comes upon me often — at least 30 times a year, if not more than that. But when the need is upon me, this is where I go. And the need comes upon me often — at least 30 times a year, if not more than that.

At the end of a menu heavy with chicken, veal, seafood and pasta dishes at Di Pilla’s Italian Restaurant — a pretty fancy place in which to order a pizza — you’ll find a list of the very fine pies served here, classic ingredients, served in small, medium and large, the sort of pizza that I guess you have to eat with a knife and fork, because in such a fancy place, with white tablecloths and chandeliers, and paintings of Italy on the walls, picking up a slice, folding it in half, and gobbling it down would seem positively uncivilized.

This is a proper pizza in a proper setting. And though that’s rarely the way we eat pizza these days, well, why not?

Greco’s Pizza & Pasta sits in a restaurant heavy mall in Glendora, just off the freeway, right next to a Chinese dumpling shop.

There are a handful of tables for eating in-house. But far as I can tell, most everyone gets their orders to go. Though I’m not sure how they manage to get the pies home — they smell so good, look so good, and taste so good.

Greco’s is the creation of Ross Greco, who’s been making tasty chow for sale since he was 10 years old, and sold pigs in blankets out of his Radio Flyer wagon.

In 1986, he opened his first pizzeria in Pasadena, after training with his pizzaiolo family. The man was born to make pies. And indeed he does, things of cheesy/saucy beauty and elegance, big pies, topped with lots of stuff, half of which are served sauceless because, well, that’s kind of cool.

Last time I was there, I watched as a couple of guys ordered a pie to go, started to leave, looked at each other, sat down and started eating. I thought they were right on the money.

You get a choice of thick crust, thin crust and gluten-free at Pasadena Pizza Co., which sits in the back of a mini-mall, adjacent to (of course) a dentist’s office, and a tax office. The pies are big, and even bigger. The toppings are many, but mostly classic, except maybe for the ones with pastrami and with Alfredo sauce.

While you’re waiting, there are video games, and pinball machines, which take me back to my misspent youth. I love pinball. I’m better at eating pizza than playing pinball. But still…

The Original Petrillo’s dates back to 1954. Which means it opened just as the first wave of the Great Pizza Craze swept across America. Back then, the San Bernardino Freeway was just an urban developer’s daydream. And the number of local Chinese joints could be counted on far fewer than the fingers on one hand — takeout places that specialized in one from Column A, and two from Column B.

These days, the San Berdoo is a gridlocked nightmare. And you can find the cooking of every imaginable region of China within the toss of a garlic roll from Petrillo’s. But Petrillo’s is still…Petrillo’s. And very likely always will be.

There are actually two Petrillo’s at Petrillo’s. One is the take-out Petrillo’s, a separate storefront with a counter and not much else, where you wait for your pizza to emerge from the kitchen, hot and steaming. It’s pizza purgatory, a room in which you’re tortured with the wonderful aromas of oregano and garlic, unable to do anything until you’re called upon to be one of the chosen.

The pizza comes in three sizes — a small cut into eight pieces, a medium segmented into 16 pieces (like a jig-saw puzzle, some triangular, some square), and a large (24 pieces, all rectangular).

The top of the line pizza, the “Petrillo’s Specialty,” is built upon a crust that’s more crisp than, layered thickly with mozzarella, sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, salami, garlic, onions, peppers and sauce. It doesn’t have the insane quantity of cheese found at Original Ray’s in New York, nor the heavily spiced sauce that defines Brooklyn pizza. But it is a pizza that can be consumed with pride.

I grew up in a world of red sauce, though the red sauce I grew up with wasn’t always Italian. My mother did not own a cookbook. She never read the directions on a package (which was why she boiled Tater Tots, rather than baking them; trust me, there is little to recommend soggy Tater Tots). She just sort of made it up as she went along.

And since her culinary imagination was limited by her need to cook things for a long time, what she made up wasn’t necessarily particularly good.

In the case of red sauce, she decided at some point that it didn’t really matter what it was, as long as it was red and made from tomatoes. Which is how I came to grow up, eating long-cooked spaghetti (Al Dente did not live in our neighborhood) topped with ice cold butter and a generous squeeze of ketchup. Mix it around enough, and the butter eventually melts, and the ketchup turns the pasta an appealing shade of pink. And though her Tater Tots may not have been edible, her spaghetti with butter and ketchup was actually pretty good. Indeed, there have been studies that prove that ketchup makes everything taste better; it’s the culinary equivalent of the universal lubricant.

Thankfully, I lived in an Italian-American neighborhood, where the wonders of red sauce were well understood. Every main thoroughfare had a pizza and pasta joint with a name like Tony’s, Luigi’s, Johnny’s or, in the case of one of my all-time favorites, Three Sarges — named for the trio of World War II veterans who had learned how to make a proper marinara in Naples, along with a superbly crusty pie, and had carried their newfound wisdom back to The Bronx.

Over the years, spaghetti ’n’ meatballs gave way to risotto with porcini mushrooms, swordfish carpaccio and gnocchi in gorgonzola. But I’ve never lost my love of red sauce. Which why I’m so grateful for the existence of restaurants like Mama Petrillo’s. Just the name, the invocation of “mama,” fills my soul with warmth and joy. But there’s more to this venerable pair of eateries (“owned and operated by the Petrillo Family since 1961”) than a catchy name. Chef Boy-Ar-Dee is catchy too — but you know.

The older of the two Mama Petrillo’s is the one in Temple City, which feels as if it’s been there for at least a half century longer than 1961. It’s the sort of restaurant where the pizza really does fit the classic definition of a “Round of yeast dough spread with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, anchovies and herbs, baked in a brick oven — the classic pizza alla Napoletana, as sold in the pizzerias of Naples.

“Also: pizza Margherita, with tomatoes, mozzarella and parmesan, after an Italian queen; pizza alla marinara, with tomatoes and garlic, the traditional homemade version; pizza alla Romana, with onions, or with anchovies, mozzarella and parmesan.”

And that’s pretty much what’s found the pizza menu at Mama Petrillo’s, where the basic pie is topped with tomato, mozzarella and parmesan, served in four sizes ranging from individual to large, amended as you wish with all the usual suspects — sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, meatballs, olives, garlic, anchovies and, as a reminder that we live in a densely multi-ethnic part of the world, jalapenos.

This is pizza with substance, a pie that does not turn into wet cardboard after sitting on the table for, oh, you know, about 30 seconds. As in New York, it maintains its form, its shape, its integrity.

Pizza is made thick or thin, as you like it (they’re both good, though as a former New Yorker, I lean towards the thin); extra sauce is an option…so is a double hit of any of the toppings. Which means you want a double cheese pizza with double pepperoni, it’s yours to be had. Nice.

The top-of-the-line (pre-assembled division) is the Super Special, a “supreme combination” of mozzarella, sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, salami, onion, bell peppers and anchovies. This is not the land of barbecue chicken, goat cheese or Santa Barbara shrimp; pineapple, Canadian bacon and ground beef are about as over-the-top as these pizzas get.

Now, I’m tempted to say that man cannot live by pizza alone. But I’ve decided over the years that, actually, yes, you can live by pizza alone; it may be nature’s most perfect food. But once again, in the great red sauce tradition, there’s much more on the menu to satisfy your culinary desires.

There’s bruschetta (which may be the most modernist touch to be found a Mama’s), garlic bread and cheese bread; there are differences between the breads, though they do all boil down to, well, bread topped with something or other. There’s minestrone soup in a cup (a big cup!) or a bowl (a big bowl!). There’s lentil soup — “available seasonally.” (Did you know there was a lentil season? The things we learn reading menus!)

Not surprisingly, there are salads as well, quite a few of them, beginning with the antipasto (served in three sizes — bambino, mama and papa) — a classic toss of lettuce, salami, olives, garbanzos, tomatoes, pepperoncini, provolone and celery. There’s a traditional Caesar (with or without chicken), a tossed house salad (“mozzarella cheese optional”; who doesn’t love mozzarella?); and a “Famous Tomato Cucumber Salad,” which is also seasonal. Who knew etc.?

But the biggest section of the menu is devoted to pasta, listed under the heading “The Basics.” Which I suppose, in terms of red sauce cooking, is exactly what pasta is.

There’s spaghetti, linguine, mostaccioli, rigatoni, vermicelli, ravioli, manicotti, cannelloni, gnocchi, lasagna, variously flavored with the sort of red sauce that you can eat straight from the jar or bowl, as if it were some sort of pudding or ice cream. There are also meatballs, sausage, red clam sauce, white clam sauce, and Alfredo sauce, all of which can be used to spiff up your pasta. Though really, nothing more is needed than the red sauce.

For those who don’t consider pasta a proper main course (I do, but in Italy it’s a middle course, which is almost always followed with a more substantial protein), there’s a center section of the menu dedicated to chicken Alfredo, chicken parmigiana, chicken cacciatore, shrimp scampi, linguine with wine clam sauce and shrimp Angelo (sautéed in white wine and butter, then simmered in marinara, a real two fisted punch).

But for me, the pasta is usually enough — especially the ultra filling fettuccine Alfredo, or any of the lasagnas.

And anyway, one must save room for the spumoni cake for dessert — chocolate, strawberry and pistachio all together. Better than that is hard to imagine.

They make a wonderful pizza at Settebello Pizzeria Napolitana — the first California branch of a mini-chain with branches in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. It’s got a fabulously crisp bottom, with char marks from the wood-burning oven, constructed in place by pizza oven craftsmen from Naples.

They top their pizzas simply — no pineapple, no Canadian bacon, no barbecue chicken, no smoked salmon. And they do it all, according to The Rules. This is one of the most doctrinaire pizza places in town. And the doctrine they follow is set forth by those I like to refer to as…The Pizza Police.

The Pizza Police are defined on Settebello’s elegantly designed (and visually lovely, with many grand vistas of Old Napoli) as, “The Vera Pizza Napoletana (VPN)…established by Antonio Pace in Napoli, Italy in 1984.

Signore Pace led a group of pizza makers whose sole purpose was to protect the integrity and defend the origin of the pizza making tradition as it began in Napoli over 200 years ago…”

The menu is filled with interesting bits of knowledge. We learn, for instance, that the flour comes from Naples, the prosciutto from Parma, the tomato from San Marzano, the parmesan from Modena — and the cured meats from Salumi up in Seattle (run by Mario Batali’s dad), and from Fra’ Mani in Berkeley. They’ve clearly done their homework in terms of ingredients.

We also learn that we eat our pizza all wrong here in the US of A. The menu explains, “How Pizza Is Eaten in Napoli: Traditionally pizza in Napoli is served unsliced and then eaten with a knife and fork, torn by the hands or cut into slices and folded over to eat. While we serve our pizzas in the traditional Italian manner, we will be happy to slice any pizza upon request.”

Which, I suspect, most everyone requests — it’s just how we roll. And really, is there any feeling more satisfying than a still oven-hot triangle of pizza, held betwixt thumb and forefinger, folded in half so that the orange oils begin to flow, and chewed with great chomps, making the slice disappear in a matter of seconds. It’s the way I grew up eating pizza. It’s the way I’ll eat my last slice of pizza before I die.

Uptown Pizza Co. has made the best pies in Whittier for four decades now. And over the years, those pizzas have grown from the basics — to the basics…plus a bunch of modernist oddities.

You can get your pizzas topped with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and onions. But also with pastrami and pickles, chicken fajitas and cheddar cheese, oysters and pineapple. At a traditional spot, with history, I’ll stick to the old ways from the old days.

This is the pizza I grew up with, served with the spaghetti I grew up with. Sometimes, you really can go home again.